medli20's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[TNYG Anime Teaser]

Nice concept

I like the story concept; it's quite unlike any other stories I've heard of before. But, there are a few parts you could polish up on this.

-The art style is nice, but your anatomy could use some work-- namely hands, profile views, and proportions. I noticed the hands looked somewhat rushed. If this was because you didn't want to draw the same hands over and over, that's understandable, but it's advisable that you take some time drawing them anyway, because it will help make your flash look better. As far as profiles go, the jaw should be more defined and convex-- they tend to be blockier in males, and the way you drew the green haired boy's jaw makes it look like it's concave. The ear also looks kind of squished, and the neck also looks a little too skinny. The only big thing I think I should point out about proportions, though, is that the green haired boy's arm was far too short. His elbow should be approximately level with his navel, and his hands should come down to about the middle of his thighs. Of course, this is all sort of nit-picky, so if you didn't want to focus on these aspects, that's understandable. I just think you could improve the animation quality by focusing a little on some good solid drawing. :)

-Speaking of animation, the motion you have here is kind of limited. It's pretty choppy, and it seems like you relied quite a bit on pans of still images and stills with a little bit of movement (like the teardrop). I also thought the green haired boy's head turns a bit too quickly to match his mood. Try slowing it down a bit, and draw more in-between frames to make it run smoother. The part when the angel reaches her hand up could also use some work-- her body lost volume when she moved. This makes for some passable yet unconvincing artwork. If you pay close attention to how big something is when you're doing frame-by-frame animation, the overall quality will get better dramatically. :) In the part where the white-haired boy swung the sword, the hand placement on the sword looked kind of awkward, not to mention the swinging of the sword went by too quickly to properly register what happened. Also, when he gets those shocked-looking eyes, I think it would help a lot to put in some head movement to help communicate and exaggerate the state of shock he's in. It'll really help your audience connect with your characters, too. In the fire scene, I think it would have helped to put some movement in the fire to make it look more convincing. the static image made it look more like a painting than anything. I liked the motion tween, though.

I don't know what to think about the choice of music. On one hand, it fits the theme really well, but on the other hand, it's not the kind of music one would expect in an anime teaser. It's kind of like hearing Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" for a dramatic fight sequence. On one hand, it's really emotional, but on the other hand, well... you get the point.

-Finally, your Japanese is a little off. "Tenshi no you na gakuen" Literally translates to "An academy like an angel." A better English-to-Japanese translation could possibly be "Tenshi no danshi gakuen," but even that is a little iffy. My Japanese isn't the best. ^^;

Overall, it's a pretty neat anime teaser. It has a good premise and it's emotional, but the technicalities could use some work. Other than the things I pointed out, though, I like it. ;D

pancakery responds:

I'm not great at japanese, but I looked it up and 'tenshi no youna *something*" meant 'angelic smile", that is, tenshi = angel, youna = like, ic, therefore angelic, and gakuen I meant to take as boys academy, because in Hana kimi, it's Ohsaka Gakuen, which is ohsaka boys academy... I just put two and two together. Thanks for the rework though :D

In fact, thanks for the review! Taking the time to type it all up, I really appreciate that :)

For the song, I aws going for the emotional-type battle sequence. I guess I didn't really pull it off as well as I was hoping -_-;;

I will work on my anatomy! I think for my next video, I'll do part of it in one day, another part of it the next day touching up on what doesn't look right, and so on, until it's done. That way I shouldn't get bored doing the same thing over and over again but sliiightly different.

Yay technique!

Thankyou! Your review was super helpful :D

[two fight.... VA test too]

Better, but not by much

This is an improvement compared to the rest of your flashes, but I would recommend putting more focus on the storyline than just raising the framerate and adding sound. Like tehtimmy4080 said, 24 fps is good enough-- heck, you could even get away with 12fps as long as you animate it on ones. As far as voices go, as long as you have a good story that is communicated with strong gestures, postures, and facial expressions, you could actually leave out sound completely and it will be a great flash. Just watch some old Charlie Chaplin movies to see what I'm talking about.

What you could do to improve this is to start focusing on drawing things other than stick figures; a simple character with a round head and dumpling-shaped body would be an improvement. If you wanted to continue drawing stick figures, though, I would stop relying on the circle and line tools and draw the by hand instead. This will make your characters seem a little more alive.

Also, in the credits, you mentioned that you didn't think you needed the animator's survival guide. You really DO need this; it never hurts to follow a good tutorial. Another tutorial you may enjoy that was made specifically for flash can be found here: http://madelief.deviantart.com/art/Fl ash-Tutorial-for-Newbies-23360228 I'm not sure if this same guide is on NG, but I originally found it on deviantART, so that's the version I linked to you. Anyway, that guide taught me everything I know about Flash; it is DEAD USEFUL. It's really easy to follow and is packed with all the information you really need to operate flash, minus the technicalities of animation, which is a bit of a down-side.

Hope this helped. :)

[Trains]

Nice change of pace

I really like the calming pastel colors and the abstract style you animated this in. It's a little slow-paced, the music got monotonous toward the end, and I personally think the story is kind of lacking, but otherwise I really liked this one. Seeing the iconic pastel characters was like seeing a children's storybook come to life.

Great work!

[Dino's Walk the Walk]

Great Animation

As an animation exercise, this is great. :) The movement of the hind legs is realistic and fun to watch, and the part at the end where the dinosaur charges at the camera was a little unexpected and made for a great twist.

I think you could make a few tweaks here or there. For starters, I think you should get rid of the horizontal line at the bottom. It doesn't really make a good ground plane, since the dinosaur's feet is above the line in most of the animation. Another thing you could do is move the dinosaur's chest area up and down as it's walking to provide for some good secondary action. It would also be great if we could see the dinosaur's head, but if you wanted to leave it out at the top of the screen to emphasize how big it is, I could see how that works, although it's not really necessary.

Overall, this is a good animation, even if it doesn't really have a story, color, or music, which is always a plus. You've got some really good raw animation skill, which I think speaks a lot for itself. :) Great work!

Evil-eS responds:

Fixed the line ^^
and the head out of the picture was intentional, since the focus overall was of the legs themselves not the whole dino
either way thank you for the insight, much appreciated